The siblings were heavily injured; injuries covered their whole bodies like a piece of clothing. Ena, on the other hand, was barely wounded; in fact, she didn't have a single bruise on her body yet. Ena only gazed at them with disgust in his eyes. The siblings stuck together, breathing heavily while they prepared for their upcoming death.
The area around them was utterly destroyed, not an ounce of snow had been spared. Much debris was scattered, the brother's hammer was torn to pieces, smeared with blood, while multiple spikes made out of blood were gaping out of the ground, making the place look as if it were a death trap.
Another terrorist showed himself and had the intention of charging toward Ena, while her back was facing him. Not even a second after he took a single step, he was already stabbed with the same spikes, skewering him like barbecue.
The siblings had tried to retreat once, but had ended quite terribly—The sister lost a hand as a result. So with no other choice, they could only delay the inevitable as much as possible, even if it was futile in the end.
Ena took a single step forward; her footsteps had more pressure than the siblings had originally thought. They thought they were ready to die and fight for their lives, but they soon realized they were scared. Scared to hell. Scared to die a miserable death.
Each step only frightened them; they shivered as she got closer and closer, until she was towering over them. They hadn't even realized they were kneeling until she was near them. Both of them held each other; they couldn't bring themselves to fight anymore despite vowing to anyway.
She brought her blade forward and sent a clean strike to their necks.
"That's enough," Haruo ordered. "We killed most of them to the point where they pose no threat to the mission anymore, fall back and regroup."
Blood dripped on Ena's blade, the sister's neck just inches away from getting sliced in half. Her brother had a shocked expression, before calming down and sighing with relief before dropping his expression. But that didn't mean he had left his guard down.
"Already? What happened to 'Kill them all'?" Leo spoke
"I said that without thinking. There's no point wasting our time here." Haruo responded
Ena brought her finger to her ear after listening to their words. "Let me kill a little more, and I'll come back."
"Regroup, that's final," Haruo said before going flat on the line.
Ena withdrew her blade from her neck, giving them a rough glare before sprinting off the field—vanishing from their sight.
***
Theodor and Isaac had showered themselves in pools of blood—their whole body getting pigmented with a crimson color—standing a top of a mountain of corpses. They had just received Haruo's orders, but Isaac was quite embarrassed to show himself like that, while Theodor didn't really care much.
Isaac fixed his glasses, wiping off the leftover blood. "I can't believe we're going to leave after this."
Theodor listened while driving his spear into one of the corpses; The corpse groaned, it was alive—not for long though. Theodor only looked at him and shrugged.
"You really don't care, do you?"
That was when Tatiana and Leo joined their conversation; both investigated the place, which was quite a mess to say the least, and multiple corpses were stacked together with pools of blood. Leo whistled in amusement while looking at them.
"You guys sure are ruthless, aren't you, Haha!" Leo commented.
"Look who's talking, you burnt half of the camp while laughing like it was a joke," Tatiana remarked.
"Can't a man have his fun?" Leo said with a smirk.
It wasn't long before Haruo showed up by himself, while he carried Rocky by his collar. Then, finally, Ena showed up; the entire division had regrouped. Each one of them had their own taste of action; some were even sick of seeing blood, maybe because of the smell or how it stained some of their clothing.
"Fix them up, they look like a mess."
Haruo pointed at Theodor and Isaac, Ena, without a word, removed all the excess blood, removing the sickening color from their bodies.
"What about the other ones? Are we really just going to let them get away?"
Isaac felt a bit uneasy letting those criminals go; he hated what they did the most, and watching them get away with no punishment only made him worse. But he knows his own boundaries—crossing them means defying Haruo's orders. So he just let them do as they pleased, right now; there was nothing more important than the mission itself.
The other members had the same perspective, but no matter what, the mission had to go first; It was a matter of wants or need, and it was obvious which to pick between the two.
"Don't mind them, that's Fiond's problem—not ours"
Haruo made it clear, and they could no longer object or linger about that topic any longer.
"We'll continue our search for where Anderson is, take a break, and rest for a couple of minutes before we hit the road."
***
They had all relocated to somewhat of an isolated area. A CLEANER—definitely cleaner than the pile of corpses they were currently standing on top.
They were currently making their way through the endless forest, and Rocky was in between the whole division. He felt a bit uneasy being in the middle of people like them, especially when they had just killed hundreds of people. Even if the people they killed were criminals, he still couldn't understand how they could feel calm about it.
Maybe what he felt wasn't unease around them but unsafe... Which would make no sense to him whatsoever because those two words are synonyms. He got rid of the idea and continued to follow them through the darkness.
They didn't stop traversing until they had made it. "Stop." Rocky had said.
They all halted, all except Rocky himself. He continued forward and pointed at the flat area, but there was nothing there, making most of the division members confused. Rocky knelt on the ground, patting the ground for a flatter area before taking a map from his pocket. He laid it out flatly on the ground.
The map had the majority of the Fiond kingdom on it. The layout of the Fiond kingdom was easy to understand; there were 5 sections on the map, each of them being colored. There was the entertainment section, the main-market section... All that, but what was highlighted in the map was a place deep in the forest.
In the map, it was highlighted with a red marker, and there was even a schedule on the top right of the map. They had double checked it twice, and they were in the correct place, no errors whatsoever, and yet they couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, on the same old trees in the night.
"What exactly are we supposed to look for?"
Leo scanned the area as much as possible, but the same old, same old view. That was when a person had walked through thin air. All of them widened their eyes and hid behind something to get out of the person's vision.
They made little sound, the person looked around to see nothing, and shrugged it off. He made his way out of the forest until they could no longer sense his presence.
"So there was something," Theodor whispered.
"It would've been funny if there weren't, and we just wasted all our time just to get here," Leo commented.
"If that was the case, then there would be nothing stopping me from already killing myself," Tatiana remarked.
"What are we waiting for!? Let's go!"
Ena tried to rush the team to enter; obviously, they hadn't, cause if they did, the mission would have turned out chaotic.
"Be quiet, going inside recklessly would be stupid. Who knows what's on the other side? Guards? People? Traps? They are all possibilities we rest for now, we've already wasted too much energy on the camp."
All of them nodded and decided to rest for the time being.
***
They had made a camp not far from the illusion, but in an area where they didn't need to hide and have a good gaze on who or what came in or out of the illusion.
"Just like good old times, right? Remember when we first made camp when we entered the Fiond kingdom?"
Leo commented, resting on a somewhat flat rock near the fire while he gazed at the stars; Tatiana pushed him slightly, making room for herself while she sat on the snow.
"That was just 2 days ago, stop talking like that, you sound like a madman. How long are you going to keep embarrassing us like..."
While Tatiana rambled, Leo only smiled, using his arm as a pillow while he had his eyes shut. Meanwhile, Theodor and Isaac sat together waiting for their food to finish cooking. Its heavenly aroma got them imagining what the taste was like. There was nothing better than a good cooked meal after work.
Well, only for Isaac, Theodor's scent was broken hours earlier, after the intense stench of metallic swords and blood mixed with sweat, though he did still anticipate what kind of taste the fish was going to have.
"Guys, food's ready—!"
Theodor had collected it all and tried to eat it in just a bite. Isaac saw this and stopped Theodor's hand and head from him, trying to stop the same mistake he had made back on the Airship.
"Guys! H-Help!" Isaac screamed.
Rocky watched them, weirded out by the atmosphere before him; he only took his part before eating it.
Haruo only sighed in disbelief and watched the illusion from a far distance. Leo caught a glimpse of him once again in his dutiful attitude.
'There he goes again... I'm getting deja vu. Leo contemplated whether to join him in his view, like the last time, but he decided not to; not because he couldn't, but because Ena was already going toward him, and also maybe because he was bored and didn't want to be repetitive.
"What do you want this time?" Haruo asked.
She didn't quite say anything; she only sat down while she took in the view. Haruo only sighed and glanced at her before watching the illusion once again; now that he thought about it, the view was nice. It may have been dark, but the stars and the moon helped contrast that.
And for once, he took in the view and finally released some tension a bit, letting himself relax for the moment, just this once...
***
It was early morning, it was still dark out—The temperature was freezing—they had packed their things and kept them safe in their mana storage. They didn't bother to eat; they didn't want to waste too much time like yesterday.
They sprinted down near the illusion and did one last evaluation.
"We only have one goal, alright? Kill Anderson."
They all nodded and faced Haruo. They blinked a couple of times as a shining light suddenly appeared behind Haruo.
As they took a look at Haruo, his proportions seemed to be off His head slid cleanly off his neck, rolling gently on the ground; his body remained still like a statue, while blood gushed out of his neck like a waterfall.
Everyone remained silent, taking in the sight with their eyes widened. Haruo's head kept rolling until it reached Ena's foot. Ena stared at it; she couldn't move her muscles, she didn't want to.
Then, finally, his body fell. Haruo's body fell. And behind him was the same cloaked man Rocky talked to in front of the theater—The same man they fought during the terrorist attack.
The man looked at them with a stern expression, sending a slash to the ground, letting inertia splash Haruo's blood on the snow.
Haruo... Had died?